Again in John v. 2, etc., on the five porches, where lay a great multitude of impotent folk, and of the pool of Siloa.

1. Subjects strange neither to your ears nor hearts are now repeated: yet do they revive the affections of the hearer, and by repetition
in some sort renew us: nor is it wearisome to hear what is well known already, for the words of the Lord are always sweet.
The exposition of the sacred Scriptures is as the sacred Scriptures themselves: though they be well known, yet are they read
to impress the remembrance of them. And so the exposition of
them, though it be well known, is nevertheless to be repeated, that they who have forgotten it may be reminded, or they
who chanced not to hear it may hear; and that with those who do retain what they are used to hear, it may by the repetition
be brought to pass that they shall not be able to forget it. For I remember that I have already spoken to you, Beloved, on
this lesson of the Gospel. Yet to repeat the same explanation to you is not wearisome, even as it was not wearisome to repeat
the
same Lesson to you. The Apostle Paul saith in a certain Epistle, “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not
wearisome, but for you it is necessary.”36853685Phil. iii. 1, Vulgate. So too with myself to say the same things to you, to me is not wearisome, but for you it is safe.

2. The five porches in which the infirm folk lay signify the Law, which was first given to the Jews and to the people of Israel
by Moses the servant of God. For this Moses the minister of the Law wrote five books. In relation therefore 476to the number of the books which he wrote, the five porches figured the Law. But because the Law was not given to heal the
infirm, but to discover and to manifest them; for so saith the Apostle, “For if there had been a
law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law; But the Scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe;”36863686Gal. iii. 21, 22. therefore in those porches the sick folk lay, but were not cured. For what saith he? “If there had been a law given which
could have given life.” Therefore those porches which figured the Law could not cure the sick. Some one will say to me, “Why
then was it given?” The Apostle Paul hath himself explained: “Scripture,” saith he, “hath concluded all under sin, that the
promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” For these folk who were
sick, thought themselves to be whole. They received the Law, which they were not able to fulfil; they learnt in what disease
they were, and they implored the Physician’s aid; they wished to be cured because they came to know they were in distress,
which they would not have known if they had not been unable to fulfil the Law which had been given. For man thought himself
innocent, and from this very pride of false innocence became more mad. To tame this pride then and to lay it bare, the Law
was given; not to deliver the sick, but to convince the proud. Attend then, Beloved; to this end was the Law given, to
discover diseases, not to take them away. And so then those sick folk who might have been sick in their own houses with greater
privacy, if those five porches had not existed, were in those porches set forth to the eyes of all men, but were not by the
porches cured. The Law therefore was useful to discover sins, because that man being made more abundantly guilty by the
transgression of the Law, might, having tamed his pride, implore the help of Him That pitieth. Attend to the Apostle;
“The Law entered that sin might abound; but where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded.”36873687Rom. v. 20. What is, “The Law entered that sin might abound”? As in another place he saith, “For where there is no law, there is no transgression.”36883688Rom. iv. 15. Man may be called a sinner before the Law, a transgressor he cannot. But when he hath sinned, after that he hath received
the Law, he is found not only a sinner, but a transgressor. Forasmuch then as to sin is added transgression, therefore “hath
sin abounded.” And when sin abounds, human pride learns at length to submit itself, and to confess to God, and to say “I am
weak.” To say to those words of the Psalm which none but the humbled soul saith, “I said, Lord, be
merciful unto me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.”36893689Ps. xli. 4. Let the weak soul then say this that is at least convinced by transgression, and not cured, but manifested by the Law. Hear
too Paul himself showing thee, both that the Law is good, and yet that nothing but the grace of Christ delivereth from sin.
For the Law can prohibit and command; apply the medicine, that that which doth not allow a man to fulfil the Law, may be cured,
it cannot, but grace only doeth that. For the Apostle saith, “For I delight in the Law of God after the
inner man.”36903690Rom. vii. 22. That is, I see now that what the Law blames is evil, and what the Law commands is good. “For I delight in the Law of God
after the inner man. I see another law in my members resisting the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity in the law
of sin.” This derived from the punishment of sin, from the propagation of death, from the condemnation of Adam, “resists the
law of the mind, and brings it into captivity in the law of sin which is in the members.” He was
convinced; he received the Law, that he might be convinced: see now what profit it was to him that he was convinced. Hear
the following words, “Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus
Christ our Lord.”36913691Rom. vii. 24, 25, Vulgate.

3. Give heed then. Those five porches were significative of the Law, bearing the sick, not healing them; discovering, not
curing them. But who did cure the sick? He that descended into the pool. And when did the sick man descend into the pool?
When the Angel gave the sign by the moving of the water. For thus was that pool sanctified, for that the Angel came down and
moved the water. Men saw the water; and from the motion of the troubled water they understood the
presence of the Angel. If any one then went down, he was cured. Why then was not that sick man cured? Let us consider
his own words; “I have no man,” he says, “when the water is moved, to put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another
steppeth down.”36923692John v. 7. Couldest not thou then step down afterwards, if another step down before thee? Here it is shown us, that only one was cured
at the moving of the water. Whosoever stepped down first, he alone was cured: but whoever stepped down afterwards, at that
moving of the water was not cured, but waited till it was moved again. What then does this mystery36933693Sacramentum. mean? For it is not without a meaning. Attend, Beloved. Waters are put in the Apocalypse for a figure of peoples. For when
in the Apocalypse John saw many waters, he asked what it meant, and it was told him that they were peoples.36943694Rev. xvii. 15.477The water then of the pool signified the people of the Jews. For as that people was held in by the five books of Moses in
the Law, so that water too was enclosed by five porches. When was the water troubled? When the people of the Jews was troubled.
And when was the people of the Jews troubled, but when the Lord Jesus Christ came? The Lord’s Passion was the troubling of
the water. For the Jews were troubled when the Lord suffered. See, what was just
now read had relation to this troubling. “The Jews wished to kill Him, not only because He did these things on the sabbaths,
but because He called Himself the Son of God, making Himself equal with God.”36953695John v. 18. For Christ called Himself the Son after one manner, in another was it said to men, “I said, Ye are Gods, and ye are all children
of the Most High.”36963696Ps. lxxxii. 6. For if He had made Himself the Son of God in such sort as any man whatever may be called the son of God (for by the grace
of God men are called sons of God); the Jews would not have been enraged. But because they understand Him to call Himself
the Son of God in another way, according to that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God;”36973697John i. 1. and according to what the Apostle saith, “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God;”36983698Phil. ii. 6. they saw a man, and they were enraged, because He made Himself equal with God. But He well knew that He was equal, but wherein
they saw not. For that which they saw they wished to crucify; by That which they saw not, they were judged. What did the Jews
see? What the Apostles also saw, when Philip said, “Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.”36993699John xiv. 8. But what did the Jews not see? What not even the Apostles saw, when the Lord answered, “Have I been so long time with you,
and yet have ye not known Me? He that seeth Me, seeth the Father also.”37003700John xiv. 9. Because then the Jews were not able to see This in Him, they held Him for a proud and ungodly man, making Himself equal with
God. Here was a troubling, the water was troubled, the Angel had come. For the Lord is called also the “Angel of the Great
Counsel,”37013701Isa. ix. 6, Sept. in that He is the messenger of the Father’s will. For Angel in Greek is in Latin “messenger”. So you have the Lord saying
that He announces to us the kingdom of Heaven. He then had come, the “Angel of the Great Counsel,” but the Lord of all the
Angels. “Angel” on this account, because He took Flesh; the “Lord of Angels,” in that by “Him all things were made, and without
Him was nothing made.”37023702John i. 3. For if all things, Angels too. And therefore Himself was not made, because by Him all things were made. Now what was made,
was not made without the operation of the Word. But the flesh which became the mother of Christ, could not have been born,
if it had not been created by the Word, which was afterwards born of it.

4. The Jews then were troubled. What is this? “Why doeth He these things on the sabbath days?” And especially at those words
of the Lord, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”37033703John v. 17. Their carnal understanding of this, that God rested on the seventh day from all His works,37043704Gen. ii. 2. “troubled them.” For this is written in Genesis, and most excellently written it is, and on the best reasons. But they thinking
that God as it were rested from fatigue on the seventh day after all, and that He therefore blessed it, because on it He was
refreshed from His weariness, did not in their foolishness understand, that He who made all things by the Word, could not
be wearied. Let them read, and tell me how could God be wearied, who said, “Let it be made, and it
was made.” To-day if a man could so do, as God did, how would he be wearied? He said, “Let there be light, and the light
was made.” Again, “Let there be a firmament, and it was made:”37053705Gen. i. 3, 6, 7. if indeed He said, and it was not done, He was wearied. In another place briefly, “He spake, and they were made; He commanded,
and they were created.”37063706Ps. xxxii. 9, Sept. (xxxiii. 9, English version). He then who worketh thus, how doth He labour? But if He labour not, how doth He rest? But in that sabbath, in which it is
said that God rested from all His works, in the Rest of God our rest was signified; because the sabbath of this world shall
be, when the six ages shall have passed away. The six days as it were of the world are passing away. One day hath passed away,
from Adam unto Noe; another from the deluge unto Abraham; the third from Abraham unto David; the fourth from
David unto the carrying away into Babylon; the fifth from the carrying away into Babylon unto the advent of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Now the sixth day is in passing. We are in the sixth age, in the sixth day. Let us then be reformed after the image
of God, because that on the sixth day man was made after the image of God.37073707Gen. i. 27. What formation did then, let reformation do in us, and what creation did there, let creating-anew do in us. After this day
in which we now are, after this age, the rest which is promised to the saints and prefigured in those days, shall come. Because
in very truth too, after all things which He made in the world, He hath made nothing new in creation afterwards. The creatures
themselves 478shall be transformed and changed. For since the creatures were
fashioned, nothing more has been added. But nevertheless, if He who made did not rule the world, what is made would fall
to ruin: He cannot but administer that which He hath made. Because then nothing hath been added to the creation, He is said
to have rested from all His works; but because He doth not cease to govern what He made, rightly did the Lord say, “My Father
worketh even hitherto.” Attend, Beloved. He finished, He is said to have rested; for He finished His works, and hath added
no more. He governeth what He hath made; therefore He doth not cease to work. But with the same facility that He made,
with the same doth He govern. For do not suppose, brethren, that when He created He did not labour, and that He laboureth
in that He governeth: as in a ship, they labour who build the ship, and they who manage it labour too; for they are men. For
with the same facility wherewith “He spake and they were made,” with the same facility and judgment doth He govern all things
by
the Word.

5. Let us not, because human affairs seem to be in disorder, fancy that there is no governance of human affairs. For all men
are ordered in their proper places; but to every man it seems as though they have no order. Do thou only look to what thou
wouldest wish to be; for as thou shalt wish to be, the Master37083708Artifex. knoweth where to place thee. Look at a painter. Before him are placed various colours, and he knows where to set each colour
on. Questionless the sinner hath chosen to be the black colour; does not then the Artist37093709Artifex. know where to place him? How many parts does the painter finish off with the colour of black? how many ornaments does he
make of it? With it he makes the hair, the beard, the eye-brows; he makes the face of white only. Look then to that which
thou wouldest wish to be; take no care where He may order thee who cannot err, He knoweth where to place thee. For so we see
it happen by the common laws of the world. Some man, for instance, has chosen to be a house-breaker: the law of
the judge knows that he has acted contrary to the law: the law of the judge knows where to place him; and orders him most
properly. He indeed has lived evilly; but not evilly has the law ordered him. From a house-breaker he will be sentenced to
the mines; from the labour of such how great works are constructed? That condemned man’s punishment is the city’s ornament.
So then God knoweth where to place thee. Do not think that thou art disturbing the counsel of God, if thou art minded to be
disorderly. Doth not He who knew how to create, know how to order thee? Good were it for thee to strive for this, to be
set in a good place. What was said of Judas by the Apostle? “He went unto his own place.”37103710Acts i. 25. By the operation of course of Divine Providence, because by an evil will he chose to be evil, but God did not by ordering
evil make it. But because that evil man himself chose to be a sinner, he did what he would, and suffered what he would not.
In that he did what he would, his sin is discovered; in that he suffered what he would not, the order of God is praised.

6. Wherefore have I said all this? That ye, brethren, may understand what was most excellently said by the Lord Jesus Christ,
“My Father worketh even hitherto.” In that He doth not abandon the creature which He made. And He said, “As He worketh, so
do I also work.” In this He at once signified that He was equal with God. “My Father,” saith He, “worketh hitherto, and I
work.” Their carnal sense touching the rest37113711Sabbato. was troubled. For they thought that the Lord being wearied rested, that He should work no more. They hear, “My Father worketh
even hitherto:” they are troubled. “And I work:”37123712John v. 17. He hath made Himself equal with God: they are troubled. But be not alarmed. The water is troubled, now the sick man is to
be cured. What meaneth this? Therefore are they troubled, that the Lord may suffer. The Lord doth suffer, the precious Blood
is shed, the sinner is redeemed, grace is given to the sinner, to him that saith, “Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
37133713Rom. vii. 24, 25, Vulg. But how is he cured? If he step down. For that pool was so made, that men should go down, and not come up to it. For there
might be pools of such a kind, so constructed, that men must go up to them. But why was this made in such a way that men must
go down to it? Because the Lord’s Passion searches for the humble. Let the humble go down, let him not be proud, if he wishes
to be cured. But why was it but “one”? Because the Church is only One throughout the world, unity is
saved. When then one is made whole, unity is signified. By one understand unity. Depart not then from unity, if thou wouldest
not be without a part in this saving37143714Salute. cure.

7. What then does it mean that the man was in infirmity thirty-eight years? I know, brethren, that I have spoken of this already;
but even those who read forget, how much more they who hear but seldom? Attend therefore for a little while, Beloved. In37153715 Serm. i. (li. Ben.) 32 (xxii.). the number forty, the accomplishment of righteousness is 479figured. The accomplishment of righteousness, in that we live here in labour, in toil, in self-restraint, in fastings, in
watchings, in tribulations; this is the exercise of righteousness, to bear this present time, and to fast as it were from
this world; not from the food of the body, which we do but seldom; but from the love of the world, which we ought to do always.
He then fulfils the law
who abstains from this world. For he cannot love that which is eternal, unless he shall cease to love that which is temporal.
Consider a man’s love: think of it as, so to say, the hand of the soul. If it is holding anything, it cannot hold anything
else. But that it may be able to hold what is given to it, it must leave go what it holds already. This I say, see how expressly
I say it; “Whoso loveth the world cannot love God; he hath his hand engaged.” God saith to him, “Hold what I
give.” He will not leave go what he was holding; he cannot receive what is offered. Have I said a man should not possess
ought? If he is able, if perfection require this of him, let him not possess. If hindered by any necessity he is not able,
let him possess, not be possessed; let him hold, not be held; let him be the lord of his possessions, not the slave; as saith
the Apostle “However, brethren, the time is short; it remaineth that both they that have wives, be as though they had not;
and they who buy, as though they possessed not; and they who rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they who weep,
as though they wept not; and they who use this world, as though they used37163716 Vulgate. it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away. I would have you be without carefulness.”371737171 Cor. vii. 29–32. What is, “Do not love what thou dost possess in this world”? Let it not hold thine hand fast, by which God must be held.
Let not thy love be engaged, whereby thou canst make thy way to God, and cleave to Him who created thee.

8. Thou wilt say and make answer to me, “Yea, God knows that I possess innocently what I have.” Temptation proves thee. There
is a troubling of thy possessions, and thou dost blaspheme. It is but lately we were in such a case. There is a troubling
of thy possessions, and thou art not found what thou wast, and dost show that there is one thing in thy mouth to-day, and
another in thy mouth yesterday. And I would that thou wouldest only defend thine own even with
vehemence;37183718Clamore. and not try to usurp with audacity another’s; and what is worse, to escape reprehension, maintain that what is another’s
is thine own. But why need I say more? This I advise, this I say, Brethren, and as a brother advise; God bids, and I admonish
because I am admonished. He alarmeth me, who doth not allow me to keep silence. He exacteth of me what He hath given. For
He hath given it to be laid out, not to be kept up. And if I should keep it and hide it, He saith to me,
“Thou wicked and slothful servant, wherefore gavest thou not My money to the exchangers, that at My coming I might require
it with usury?”37193719Luke xix. 22, 23. And what will it profit me that I have lost nothing of that which I received? That is not enough for my Lord, He is covetous;
but God’s covetousness is our salvation. He is covetous, He looketh for His own money, He gathereth in His Own image. “Thou
shouldest have given,” saith He, “the money to the exchangers, that at My coming I might require it with usury.” And if by
any chance forgetfulness should make me fail of admonishing you, the temptations and tribulations
at least which we are suffering, would be an admonition to you. Ye have heard at least the word of God. Blessed be the
Lord and His glory. For ye are here gathered together, and are hanging on the word of God’s minister. Turn not your attention
to our flesh, by which the word is given out to you; for hungry men regard not the meanness of the dish, but the preciousness
of the food. God is proving you. Ye are gathered together, ye praise the word of God; temptation will prove in what manner
ye
hear it: ye will have the active business of life whereby your true character will be shown. For so he who to-day is shouting
with railings, was yesterday a ready listener. Therefore I forewarn; therefore I tell you, therefore I do not withhold it,
my Brethren, that the time of questioning will come. For the Lord maketh question of the righteous and of the ungodly. This
you know ye have sung, this have we sung together; “The Lord maketh question of the righteous and the ungodly.” And what
follows? “But he that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul.”37203720Ps. x. 5, Sept. (xi. 5, English version). And in another place, “Into the thoughts of the ungodly there shall be questioning made.”37213721Wisd. i. 9. God doth not make question of thee there, where I question thee. I question thy tongue, God questioneth thy thoughts. For
He knoweth how thou dost hear, and He knoweth how to require, Who ordereth me to give. He hath wished me to be a dispenser,
the requiring He hath reserved to Himself. To admonish, to teach, to rebuke, is ours; but to save, and to crown, or to condemn,
and to cast into hell, is not ours; “But the Judge shall deliver to the officer, and the officer to the
prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not go out thence, till thou payest the last farthing.”37223722Matt. v. 25, 26.

9. Let us then return to our subject. The perfection of righteousness is shown by the number forty. What is it to fulfil the
number 480forty? To restrain one’s self from the love of this world. Restraint from temporal things, that they be not loved to our destruction,
is, as it were, fasting from this world. Therefore the Lord fasted forty days, and Moses, and Elias. He then who gave His
servants the power to fast forty days, could He not fast eighty or
a hundred? Why then did He not will to fast more than He had given His servants to do, but because in this number forty
is the mystery of fasting, the restraint from this world? What is this to say? What the Apostle says; “The world is crucified
to me, and I to the world.”37233723Gal. vi. 14. He then fulfils the number forty. And what doth the Lord show? That because Moses did this, this Elias, this Christ, that
this both the Law, and the Prophets, and the Gospel, teach; that thou mayest not think that there is one thing in the Law,
another in the Prophets, another in the Gospel. All Scripture teacheth thee nothing else, but restraint from the love of the
world, that thy love may speed on to God. As a figure that the Law teaches this, Moses fasted forty days. As a
figure that the Prophets teach it, Elias fasted forty days. As a figure that the Gospel teaches it, the Lord fasted forty
days. And therefore in the mount too these three appeared, the Lord in the middle, Moses and Elias at the sides. Wherefore?
Because the Gospel itself receives testimony from the Law and the Prophets.37243724Rom. iii. 21. But why in the number forty is the perfection of righteousness? In the Psalter it is said, “O God, I will sing a new song
unto Thee, upon a psaltery of ten strings will I sing praises unto Thee.”37253725Ps. cxliv. 9. Which signifies the ten precepts of the Law, which the Lord came not to destroy, but to fulfil. And the Law itself throughout
the whole world, it is evident, hath four quarters, the East, and West, South, and North, as the Scripture saith. And hence
the vessel which bare all the emblematic animals, which was exhibited to Peter, when he was told, “Kill and eat,”37263726Acts x. 13. that it might be shown that the Gentiles should believe and enter into the body of the Church, just as what we eat entereth
into our body, and which was let down from heaven by four corners (these are the four quarters of the world), showed that
the whole world should believe. Therefore in the number forty is restraint from the world. This is the fulfilling of the Law:
now the fulfilling of the Law is charity. And therefore before the Pasch we fast forty days. For this time
before the Pasch is the sign of this our toilsome life, wherein, in toils, and cares, and continence, we fulfil the Law.
But afterwards we celebrate the Pasch, that is, the days of the Lord’s resurrection signifying our own resurrection. Therefore
fifty days are celebrated; because the reward of the denarius is added to the forty, and it becomes fifty. Why is the reward
a denarius? Have ye not read, how that they who were hired into the vineyard, whether at the first, or sixth, or the last
hour, could only receive the denarius?37273727Matt. xx. 2. When to our righteousness shall be added its reward, we shall be in the number fifty. Yea, and then shall we have none other
occupation, save to praise God. And therefore throughout those days we say, “Hallelujah.” For Halleluiah is the praise of
God. In this frail estate of mortality, in this fortieth number here, as though before the resurrection, let us groan in prayers,
that we may sing praises then. Now is the time of longing, then will be the time of embracing and
enjoying. Let us not faint in the time of forty, that we may joy in the time of fifty.

10. Now who is he that fulfilleth the Law, but he that hath charity? Ask the Apostle, “Charity is the fulfilling of the Law.37283728Rom. xiii. 10. For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, in that which is written, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”37293729Gal. v. 14. But the commandment of charity is twofold; “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy mind. This is the great commandment. The other is like it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” They are
the words of the Lord in the Gospel: “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”37303730Matt. xxii. 37–40. Without this twofold love the Law cannot be fulfilled. As long as the Law is not fulfilled, there is infirmity. Therefore
he had two short, who was infirm thirty and eight years. What means, “had two short”? He did not fulfil these two commandments.
What doth it profit that the rest is fulfilled, if those are not fulfilled? Hast thou thirty-eight? If thou have not those
two, the rest will profit thee nothing. Thou hast two short, without which the rest avail not, if thou
have not the two commandments which conduct unto salvation. “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I have
all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I distribute all my substance, and
if I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”373137311 Cor. xiii. 1–3. They are the Apostle’s words. All those things therefore which he mentioned are as it were the thirty-eight years; but because
charity was not there, there was infirmity. From that infirmity who then shall make whole, but He who came to give charity?
“A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”37323732John xiii. 34. And because He came to 481give charity, and charity fulfilleth the Law, with good reason said He, “I came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil.”37333733Matt v. 17. He cured the sick man, and told him to carry his couch, and go unto his house.37343734John v. 8, 9. And so too He said to the sick of the palsy whom He cured.37353735Mark ii. 9. What is it to carry our couch? The pleasure of our flesh. Where we lie in infirmity, is as it were our bed. But they who
are cured master37363736Continent. and carry it, are not by this flesh mastered. So then, thou whole one, master the frailness of thy flesh, that in the sign
of the forty days’ fast from this world, thou mayest fulfill the number forty, for that He hath made that sick man whole,
“Who came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil.”

11. Having heard this, direct your heart to Godward. Do not deceive yourselves. Ask yourselves then when it is well with you
in the world ; then ask yourselves, whether ye love the world, or whether ye love it not; learn to let it go before ye are
let go yourselves. What is to let it go? Not heartily to love it. Whilst there is yet something with thee which thou must
one day lose, and either in life or death let it go, it cannot be with thee always; whilst I say it
is yet with thee, loosen thy love; be prepared for the will of God, hang upon God. Hold thee fast to Him, whom thou canst
not lose against thy will, that if it chance thee to lose these temporal things, thou mayest say, “The Lord gave, the Lord
hath taken away, as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done, blessed be the Name of the Lord.”37373737Job i. 21, Sept. But if it chance, and God so wills it, that the things thou hast be with thee even to the last: for thy detachment from this
life thou receivest the denarius, the fifty, and the perfection of blessedness cometh to pass in thee, when thou shalt sing
Hallelujah. Having these things which I have now brought forward in your memory, may they avail to overthrowing your love
of the world. Evil is its friendship, deceitful, it makes a man the enemy of God. Soon, in one single
temptation, a man offendeth God, and becometh His enemy. Nay not then becometh His enemy; but is then discovered to have
been His enemy. For when he was loving and praising Him, he was an enemy; but he neither knew it himself, nor did others.
Temptation came, the pulse is touched, and the fever discovered. So then brethren, the love of the world, and the friendship
of the world, make men the enemies of God. And it does not make good what it promises, it is a liar, and deceiveth. Therefore
men
never cease hoping in this world, and who attains to all he hopes for? But whereunto soever he attains, what he has attained
to is forthwith disesteemed by him. Other things begin to be desired, other fond things are hoped for; and when they come,
whatsoever it is that comes to thee, is disesteemed. Hold thee fast then to God, for He can never be of light esteem, for
nothing is more beautiful than He. For for this cause are these things disesteemed, because they cannot stand, because they
are
not what He is. For nought, O soul, sufficeth thee, save He who created thee. Whatsoever else thou apprehendest is wretched;
for He Alone can suffice thee who made thee after His Own likeness. Thus it was expressly said, “Lord, show us the Father,
and it sufficeth us.”37383738John xiv. 8. There only can there be security; and where security can be, there in a certain sort will be insatiable satiety. For thou
wilt neither be so satiated, as to wish to depart; nor will anything be wanting, as though thou couldest suffer want.